Circular Permutations

By Shu Ghosh, Jon Chu, Hyun-Soo Kim

We introduce the following problem: How many ways are there
to arrange n children around a circular table, if two arrangements are
considered the same if and only if any childs left and right neighbors
are the same?
For example, these two arrangements are considered the same:
B

Notice that although the number of ways to arrange n children in

a line is n!, the same does not apply to n children in the above
situation.
In fact, there are (n-1)! distinct arrangements. To see why,
consider any arrangement of n children.
Consider the following linear arrangements of children:
a 1, a 2,
a 2, a 3,
a 3, a 4,

an
a 1,
a2

a n , a 1,

an-1

If the last child of each line were to walk around and stand in
front of the first child of each line, then each line would become a
circular arrangement, all of which are identical.
It follows that there are exactly n linear arrangements for each
circular arrangement. Therefore, we divide the number of possible
linear arrangements of n children by n, resulting in
n!/n = (n-1)!

Exercises
1.)

At a dinner where n husbands and n corresponding wives are

seated randomly around a dining table, what is the probability
that a specific husband is seated next to his wife?

2.)

How many ways are there to seat n husbands and n wives

around a dining table such that each husband is next to his
wife?

3.)

How many ways are there to arrange 5 boys and 5 girls

around a table such that no two boys are next to each other?

4.)

Generalize the above situation to m boys and m girls.

5.)

Find the number of ways to arrange m boys and m+1 girls

given the restrictions in problem 3.

Solutions to Exercises
1.)

2 / (2n-1).
Let the husbands name be A, his wife B. A has to be next
to B, so we can group the couple as a single entity. So now,
there are 2n-1 entities to be seated around the table,
resulting in (2n-2)! possible arrangements in which A is next
to B. However, clearly, for every arrangement in which A is to
the left of B, there is a different arrangement in which A is to
the right of B. Therefore, there are actually 2*(2n-2)! distinct
arrangements. To obtain the probability, we simply divide by
the total number of arrangements, which is (2n-1)!.

2.)

(n-1)!*2n.
There are n couples, so (n-1)! ways to arrange each couple
around the table. For each couple, there are two ways to
arrange husband and wife: i.e., wife on the left, or wife on
the right. Thus, in one arrangement of n couples around the
table, there are 2n distinct arrangements within the couples.
Since we have (n-1)! arrangements of n couples around the
table, there are (n-1)!*2n total distinct arrangements in which
each husband is next to his wife.

3.)

5!4!
It is evident that going clockwise, a girl must follow a boy
and vice versa. We consider the number of ways to situate
the 5 boys in their positions. This number is simply (5-1)! =
4!. The 5 girls must fill up 5 spaces one between each two
adjacent boys. Since there are 5 spaces for 5 girls to fill,
there are 5! ways to arrange the girls. The total is simply
their product, 4!5!.

4.)

m!(m-1)!
See above.

5.)

(m+1)!m!
As with the previous two problems, it is necessary that
there exists a girl between every two adjacent pair of
boys. But since there are more girls than boys, we have to
choose the m girls to be between m adjacent boy-pairs.
m + 1
There are
ways to choose these m girls. From here,
m
the number of ways to arrange the m girls and m boys

follows from before, which is m!(m-1)!. Once we have

done so, we need to insert the remaining girl into a spot
between the already placed girls and boys. There are 2m
m + 1
such spots. That makes our answer
m!(m-1)!*2m.
m
But we notice the following.
Lets say that by chance, a girl named Alice became
the remaining girl. Lets suppose she becomes situated
between Bob and his neighbor, Cathy, who is also next to
George.
Bob Alice Cathy George
Lets now say that in another arrangement, Alice has
been chosen as one of the m preliminary girls, but Cathy
has become in fact the remaining girl. Then, Cathy can be
situated between Alice and Bob:
Bob Cathy Alice George
But Cathy can also be situated between Alice and
George, yielding:
Bob Alice Cathy George
a case we have already counted.
Using our place the remaining girl into one of the
2m spots yields two ways of representing the same
arrangement. Therefore, we can generalize to the
conclusion that within our count, there exists an equivalent
arrangement to each of the assortments we have already
counted.
Are we sure that there is no more than one
equivalent arrangement to each assortment we have
already counted? Notice that in any arrangement, there is
exactly one pair of girls who are neighbors of each other.
Let us name them A and B. One of the neighboring two
girls must have been the remaining girl. For two
arrangements to be the same, the two neighboring girls
must be in the same order and of the same people. This is
only possible if A was the remaining girl in the first

arrangement and B was the remaining girl in the second

arrangement.
So the total number of possible arrangements is:
m + 1

m!(m-1)!*2m /2 = (m+1)m!(m-1)!*m
m
= (m+1)!m!.